


Make Do and Mend

by Kroki_Refur



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-16
Updated: 2007-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27557098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kroki_Refur/pseuds/Kroki_Refur
Summary: It's amazing what can be fixed with a little ingenuity and a lot of determination.
Kudos: 2





	Make Do and Mend

_"Let's get you fixed up," says Dean, and Sam sits down and holds out his hand._  
  
\----  
  
There's something freakish going on at 113 Maplewood Drive, Fairburn, Tennessee. Sam knows there's something freakish going on because he read about it in the paper, and then at the archives in the local library: three families moving out in two years, reports of furniture moving on its own, kids seeing strange men in the house, adults being pushed down the stairs. Dean knows there's something freakish going on because he's at 113 Maplewood Drive right now, and there's a goddamn ghost getting all up in his face.   
  
The ghost's total old school, freakin cliché is what, enough to make Dean actually roll his eyes, which would be great except Dean's goddamn gun is upstairs (oh yeah, that push-you-down-the-stairs gig? Dean is _so_ over that, it's like, what, 1997 all over again), and he's got nothing but his razor-sharp wit and manly good looks to defend himself with, and hey, they're good assets, fucking _awesome_ in fact, but turns out Casper's got a structural wall and a mean throwing arm on his side, and no matter how many times Dean goes through that particular loop, it still hurts like a goddamn bitch. So yeah, one of the worst things about clichés? They're fucking _painful_.  
  
Dean's head smacks back against the plaster so hard he figures it must have left a dent, and he's pretty sure he's going to pass out any minute now, and to cap it all off, he feels his shirt catch on something and rip loudly as he slides down the wall. Mr. Burning Eyes and Grim Lips (Jesus, might as well be wearing a goddamn white sheet) is heading for him again, and Dean starts to struggle to his feet, the room tilting crazily around him, when Cliché Boy explodes in a shower of hot salt.  
  
"Jesus," says Sam, and Dean must have been kinda out of it because he didn't even hear the front door open. "Dean, you OK?"  
  
Dean closes his eyes, makes an O with his thumb and forefinger. "Peachy. Hey, you know, I think you're right. This place _is_ haunted."  
  
Thing is, OK, Dean feels like crap, but he's OK, he survived, and they can salt and burn Emo Ghost Boy and be on their way and that would be _awesome_ , except for how Sam just won't. Shut. Up. It's all _you sure you're OK?_ and _you shouldn't have gone to the house without me_ and concerned glances and _Jesus_ , Dean's head is throbbing and his second-favourite shirt is a mess, so ripped up that it's probably not fixable, and he doesn't even want to _think_ about the state of his ribs and back and _for Christ's sake Sam, just shut the fuck up, will you?_  
  
And then there's bed, and Sam retreats in silence, and Dean doesn't even bother to shower, just sinks into the lumpy mattress and figures _tomorrow, we'll patch things up tomorrow_.  
  
When Dean wakes up, his ribs feel like someone's taken a sledge-hammer to them, and there's aspirin and coffee on the bedside table and his shirt hanging off the back of the chair, Sam's small, neat stitches holding it together, not as good as new, but the next best thing. Dean puts it on, checks the back. It's criss-crossed with lines, new seams where there used to just be unbroken fabric, kinda like Frankenstein only, you know, with the stitches on the inside. Dean grins, because Frankenstein? Is pretty awesome. And anyway, Dean's always liked his clothes to have character.  
  
\----  
  
 _"Let's get you fixed up," says Dean, and Sam sits down and holds out his hand. The edges of the gash are ragged and raw, blood still oozing slowly, gleaming darkly in the crappy motel lighting, and Dean's hand shakes slightly as he holds the needle.  
  
"What about you?" asks Sam._  
  
\----  
  
Sam's thrown out of a nightmare by the sound of something shattering and Dean cursing, and for a moment -- longer than a moment -- he can't tell whether he's dreaming or waking, blood and fire stalking across the highway ahead of them, and when he looks at Dean he has to shut his eyes and convince himself that Dean's face isn't hanging off in tatters. When he opens them again, Dean's staring at him, but his skin's intact and the road is empty, the car parked on the verge, cold air stinging Sam's face through the open window.  
  
"What?" says Sam, tongue thick with sleep and fear ( _Dean's OK, everything's OK_ ).  
  
"You--" says Dean, still staring, then twitches slightly. "Window's broken," he says.  
  
Sam looks to his right, and it is, broken, not open, a few shards of glass still sticking out of the frame. "Jesus," he says. "What happened?"  
  
Dean finally tears his eyes away, looks straight ahead, stony, maybe angry. "Fucking--" he says, fingers tightening on the wheel, "fucking rock. Must've been kicked up by a semi or something."  
  
"Oh," says Sam. "You OK?"  
  
Dean shoots him a glance, and yeah, angry ( _afraid_ ). "Your goddamn window, man," he says. "Not me you should be worried about."  
  
Three cars pass before Sam can think of an answer. It's drizzling, and Sam's brain is moving slow, still baffled by his nightmare and the pain that's starting up behind his eyes, not to mention the surrealness of what is apparently the waking world. He finally realises he should tell Dean he's fine, except Dean's vanished from the front seat,and Sam's beginning to wonder if he fell asleep again ( _or if maybe he never woke up in the first place_ ) when Dean appears outside the shattered window with a piece of clear plastic sheeting and a roll of tape.  
  
"Don't want the weather getting in," he mutters. "Plays hell with the leather."  
  
Sam's headache is building up into a real bastard now, and he doesn't argue, still not convinced he's not dreaming. Dean tapes the plastic over the window, gets back in the car and starts the engine without a word, and Sam leans his head back and is just slipping into sleep when Dean flips on the stereo full blast and starts grimly singing along.  
  
The plastic sheeting serves them for five hundred miles and two poker games, and it's not until Sam's sitting outside a repair shop in Huntingdon, Alabama that he realises that there was no rock and no glass inside the car when he woke up, which means either Dean somehow cleared it up without him noticing, or the window was shattered from the inside.  
  
\----  
  
 _"Let's get you fixed up," says Dean, and Sam sits down and holds out his hand. The edges of the gash are ragged and raw, blood still oozing slowly, gleaming darkly in the crappy motel lighting, and Dean's hand shakes slightly as he holds the needle.  
  
"What about you?" asks Sam, teeth gritted.  
  
"I'm not the one who looks like they stuck their arm in a blender," Dean points out, pulling the thread tight, ignoring the way Sam's face has gone pale.  
  
"Not now," Sam insists, "but sometimes you are. Who's going to fix you up?"_  
  
\----  
  
The flashlight gives out in a basement in South Carolina, and at first, they think it's a ghost, except Sam's flashlight hasn't even flickered, so that makes no sense at all. All the same, they're on their guards for a little while, Sam swinging his flashlight beam carefully, trying to make sure it helps Dean to see as well, Dean with the shotgun up against his shoulder the whole time, looking like he thinks he's fucking Clint Eastwood, which would be funny except sometimes Sam thinks he just really _is_ that cool. It's weird, only having one light, and even though Sam's the one that's got it in his hands ( _the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind_ ), he starts jumping at shadows in a way that he doesn't even when there's no light at all, until Dean tells him to quit it or there'll be ass-kicking (and Sam thinks he could probably take Dean, but he's not sure where he stands on Clint Eastwood).  
  
There's no ghost, though, and the next day it turns out that there never was, just some kids playing a prank, so they pile their stuff into the Impala, and make tracks. They've been on the road for three hours when they pull into a gas station. Dean gets his usual complement of sugar and grease that makes Sam's teeth hurt just looking at it, and Sam throws in a pack of gum.  
  
"Dude," says Dean. "You don't even like gum."  
  
Sam shrugs. "Maybe I changed my mind."  
  
Dean narrows his eyes for a second, then grins. "Well, I guess it _is_ a woman's prerogative."  
  
Thing is, Sam really _doesn't_ like gum, doesn't like the rubbery feel of it in his mouth and the way its entire effect is based on creating extra saliva. It's just -- well, it's gross. Also, talking to people who are chewing gum is pretty gross, too, especially when they breathe out and the smell kind of -- never mind. Anyway, Sam hates gum, but he's chewing it anyway, sitting in their motel room while Dean does inventory on their bullets, and at some point _I Love Lucy_ becomes _The Howling_ , and Sam pulls the wad of gum out of his mouth (which, seriously, gross) and applies himself to the task at hand.  
  
Fifteen minutes later, Dean growls when Sam shines the flashlight in his face. "Hey, watch where you're... Hey! That's mine!"  
  
Sam grins. "Guess we don't need to shell out for a new one after all."  
  
"But..." Dean grabs the flashlight, peers at it, shakes it. The beam stays strong and steady. "How'd you do that?" he asks, accusingly.  
  
Sam settles back on the bed. "Come on, Dean. A woman's gotta have secrets, you know."  
  
Dean somehow manages to scowl and grin at the same time, and Sam picks up his book and then puts it down a moment later and goes to the bathroom to wash off his hands.  
  
\----  
  
 _"Let's get you fixed up," says Dean, and Sam sits down and holds out his hand. The edges of the gash are ragged and raw, blood still oozing slowly, gleaming darkly in the crappy motel lighting, and Dean's hand shakes slightly as he holds the needle.  
  
"What about you?" asks Sam, teeth gritted.  
  
"I'm not the one who looks like they stuck their arm in a blender," Dean points out, pulling the thread tight, ignoring the way Sam's face has gone pale.  
  
"Not now," Sam insists, "but sometimes you are. Who's going to fix you up?"  
  
"Dad'll do it. You know that. Or I'll do it myself."  
  
Sam shakes his head, hard, and his lip is trembling slightly but his eyes are dry. "What if Dad's not here?"  
  
Dean sighs, tying off the thread. "I told you, Sam, you're too young to learn this."  
  
Sam watches him for a long moment, then pulls his arm back, running his finger over the line of tiny Xs. "So are you," he says._  
  
\----  
  
Sam's got this book, _The Grapes of Wrath_ , he's had it for fucking _ever_ , like, seriously, some English teacher gave it to him in, like, the sixth grade or something, and really, Dean doesn't know whether to slap the guy or shake his hand, because that book is like Sam's security blanket, and sometimes it's _so fucking annoying_ when Dean's trying to talk to Sam and he's got his nose buried in the goddamn thing (because come on, he's read it, like, a million times already), and then sometimes, when Sam is tired or sad or desperate, when Dean's got no idea what the fuck to do to help him, sometimes Sam'll grab up the stupid book and he'll just sit and read, and when he's done, he'll be pale but he'll be holding together, like the book can just tie off the fraying edges or something. So yeah, the book's got these freakish powers, and Dean even tried to read it a couple times, figuring maybe it actually _was_ some kind of spell book or something, but there was just some shit in there about a tortoise or whatever and then a car and some dust -- OK, so, maybe Dean doesn't really remember that well, but the point is, it was just a _book_ , you know? And pretty goddamn depressing, too, from what Dean could tell.  
  
So Dean doesn't really get the point of the book, but hey, he doesn't get the point of a lot of things Sam does, and it doesn't mean he's not pissed off for Sammy when the damn thing gets shredded by a poltergeist outside of Oklahoma City. Poltergeists are generally pretty fucked up, but on a one-to-ten scale, this one's pulling a seventeen, smashing every goddamn thing it can find, all the usual suspects like plates and glasses and windows, but also walls and chairs and the goddamn _toilet_ for Christ's sake, and Sam's book -- and Sam -- just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  
  
For a mean son of a bitch, the poltergeist is surprisingly easy to lay, probably because it's concentrating so hard on doing the whole interior design makeover thing that it doesn't even notice what Sam and Dean are doing. When they're done, Dean's got blood dripping in his right eye, and Sam's hand is swelling up like a freakin sex doll (air bed, Jesus, _air bed_ ), and really, all Dean wants to do is get the fuck out, but Sam drops to his knees and starts trying to sweep up all the pages, and Dean can't have that, not with Sam's hand the way it is, so he pushes him out of the house and does it himself.  
  
It's three months later when Sam starts getting that pinched look, that stupid emo _Jesus Christ help me I can't do this_ look that makes Dean want to break something really, really hard. And Dean tries, he really does, but nothing gets through, and Sam doesn't get better, he starts eating less and Dean thinks _why doesn't he just read the stupid book_ and then he remembers why.  
  
It takes a while, because Dean can't work on it while Sam's around, and they live in the same room, in the same car, so Sam's around most of the goddamn time. It's the kind of thing Dean really kinda hates, fucking patience and attention to detail and a _massive_ waste of scotch tape, and the problem is that even when it's done, there are still pages missing, presumably back in the house in whatever state it was with the goddamn five-million-piece china dinner set. And Dean can fix a lot of things, but he can't magically bring pieces of book back from the dead. So he's thinking, maybe he should just buy Sam a new copy, but even though he's read the beginning of the thing and he's pretty sure that it's not magic (unless _magic_ is a new word for _totally fucking boring_ ), he feels like maybe a new copy won't work, like maybe it has to be this one.  
  
There's nothing for it, then. One day, while Sam's in the shower, Dean gets a piece of paper and flips through the book. Page one hundred and sixty-three is missing. Dean thinks for a moment, then writes _The next day, in the depressing refugee camp in California or wherever, the tortoise was totally freaked to see a werewolf coming at him._ He rereads the sentence a couple times, then crosses out _totally freaked_ and writes _mighty surprised_. And hey, this writing shit is totally not as hard as he thought it would be.  
  
Problem is, though, is that for all when he actually started doing it, it went a hell of a lot quicker than he'd thought, when the moment of truth comes, he's pretty sure Sam is going to notice his additions, because hey, Sam's gotta know every goddamn word in that book by now, and also, Dean's not entirely sure that some of the passages he wrote really fitted in with the plot or whatever, partly because he's not sure the book even _has_ a goddamn plot, and also, now he comes to think about it, it might not be the kind of book that has werewolves in it. So, OK, when Sam finds the book on the table and picks it up and looks at Dean, Dean goes and takes a shower, and when he comes out, Sam is sitting on the bed reading, and doesn't even look up. The pages Dean wrote are really freakin obvious, bright white where the rest of it is, like, yellowy parchment type colour of _boring_ , and Dean sees when Sam finally turns to the first one and holds his breath (just because he really doesn't want to deal with Sam having a tantrum over his precious book right now, OK?). Sam pauses, stares at the page, and looks back at the previous one. Dean concentrates really hard on the Pilates infomercial that's on it's third repetition (hey, chicks building up their thigh muscles is hot, OK?), and totally doesn't watch Sam out of the corner of his eye. Finally, Sam turns the page and keeps reading, and the next morning, the pinched look isn't gone, but it's faded, and thank fucking Christ.  
  
Two weeks later, they're in a book shop looking for some book on necroplasm or -- whatever, when Dean finds a tiny, battered copy of _The Grapes of Wrath_ and figures it's a sign. He picks it off the shelf, hands it over to Sam.  
  
"Figured your copy's kinda old," he says.  
  
Sam flicks through, runs his fingers over the pages, then snaps the book shut. "Must be a censored version or something," he says. "They missed out the best parts."  
  
Dean takes the book back, and figures there probably aren't too many books out there that aren't improved by adding in a werewolf or two.  
  
\----  
  
It's been a long day, and a longer year. Dean is covered in crap, and his arm hurts like a bitch, and Sam's dead on his feet and worse, could have actually been _dead_ , and that's not OK, not at all, everything's not OK, but it's over, and that's all there is right now, that's what Dean's clinging to.  
  
Sam stops in the middle of the motel room and just stares, eyes too wide, whites startling against the soot that covers his face. Dean stares back. There's nothing left to say. _We survived_.  
  
Finally, Sam sits on the edge of the bed and draws the chair up close. "Let's get you fixed up," he says, and Dean sits down and holds out his hand.


End file.
